Micro-​​financing a better life

Northeastern University student Rosmery Rosario, far right, interviews borrowers at a local church in San Pedro de Macorís, in the Dominican Republic.

As part of a field study pro­gram last summer, North­eastern Uni­ver­sity stu­dent Shilpi Roongta gave a $200 microloan to an impov­er­ished woman in the Dominican Republic to start a small busi­ness selling fried chicken.

“The loan made it pos­sible for her to pro­vide for her family,” said Roongta, a busi­ness major with a triple con­cen­tra­tion in social entre­pre­neur­ship, finance and mar­keting. “Without it, I didn’t see how she could survive.”

Roongta is one of 40 stu­dents in a social entre­pre­neur­ship course who will spend spring break in Mata Los Indios, a rural vil­lage in the Dominican Republic where hun­dreds of res­i­dents live on about $1 a day.

The goal of the 10-​​day expe­ri­en­tial learning oppor­tu­nity is to design a micro­fi­nance busi­ness plan to alle­viate poverty in the com­mu­nity. The stu­dents, who hope to raise $25,000 by the end of the semester to fund small-​​business loans, also plan to build a school and a house for an espe­cially poor family.

Stu­dents will com­plete the project through Northeastern’s Social Enter­prise Insti­tute in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Esper­anza Inter­na­tional, a non­profit micro­fi­nance orga­ni­za­tion in the Dominican Republic. A handful of stu­dents have com­pleted co-​​ops with the non­profit, which has granted some $23 mil­lion in loans to about 35,000 fam­i­lies over the last 15 years.

Carlos Pimentel, pres­i­dent of Esper­anza Inter­na­tional, spoke to about 100 stu­dents on campus on Wednesday, as part of the Social Enter­prise Lec­ture Series. Pimentel, who made his first visit to Boston this week, will return to the Dominican Republic with more than three-​​dozen stu­dents on Saturday.

He praised the young, glob­ally aware busi­ness leaders for con­ducting research and hosting focus groups on the impact of microloans on impov­er­ished fam­i­lies. Some 3.2 mil­lion people in the Dominican Republic live in extreme poverty.

“North­eastern is teaching a new gen­er­a­tion of stu­dents the power of social entre­pre­neur­ship,” said Pimentel, who added, “micro-​​credit is the most dig­ni­fied way to fight poverty.”

He said that stu­dents at North­eastern and impov­er­ished men, women and chil­dren in the Dominican Republic each want the same things in life, including eco­nomic freedom and hap­pi­ness. “We would like to see our fam­i­lies enjoying the same things that you want for your­selves and your family,” he said.

Dennis Shaugh­nessy, founder and director of the Social Enter­prise Insti­tute, said that expe­ri­en­tial learning oppor­tu­ni­ties in coun­tries such as the Dominican Republic give stu­dents a prac­tical under­standing of con­cepts learned through coursework.

“Stu­dents truly commit them­selves to raising cap­ital to help poor fam­i­lies,” said Shaugh­nessy, who noted that some 150 stu­dents would have helped the country’s poor start small busi­nesses by the end of the summer.

“What better way to learn than by seeing the impact that micro­fi­nance has on people’s lives?” he said.

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About the Writer

Jason Kornwitz, AS' 08, has called Northeastern home since 2003. In his spare time, he enjoys playing sports, watching pretentious movies, and cooking kingly breakfasts. Follow him on Twitter @jasonkornwitz.

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